UNF named among nation’s most ‘military friendly’ schools

The University of North Florida was named a “Military Friendly School” for 2010 by G.I. Jobs magazine. This honor ranks UNF in the top 15 percent of all colleges, universities and trade schools nationwide.

The Military Friendly Schools List, which is an extension of G.I. Job’s six-year-old Military Friendly Employers list, provides military and veteran students a way to discern which schools offer them the most benefits.

“The Military Friendly Schools list creates a metric that sets the bar on how well schools welcome military students,” said Rich McCormack, publisher of G.I. Jobs magazine. “This list is especially important now because the recently enacted Post-9/11 GI Bill has given veterans the financial means to go to school.”

Earlier this year, UNF started offering the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corp (ROTC), an educational program of leadership and military skills training, on campus. The program has grown from seven Cadets enrolled in the program this past spring to more than 30 Cadets this fall. The University is also working on offering a Military Science minor in which all of the Military Science courses taken lead to a degree instead of being counted as elective courses.

The UNF program, called “The Fighting Osprey Company,” gives students a chance to get Army training while in college. Not only do they earn college credit, but graduates can join the Army at a higher rank than most enlistees. Approximately 70 percent of the Army officers are commissioned through Army ROTC nationwide.

Criteria for inclusion in the Military Friendly Schools list included efforts to recruit and retain military and veteran students, results in recruiting military and veteran students as well as academic accreditations.

The list was compiled through research, starting last May during which G.I. Jobs polled more than 7,000 schools nationwide. Methodology, criteria and weighting for the list were developed with the assistance of an academic advisory committee consisting of educators and administrators from Carnegie Mellon University, University of Toledo, Duquesne University, Coastline Community College and Lincoln Technical Institute.

G.I. Jobs is published by Victory Media, a veteran-owned business headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pa. The company also publishes The Guide to Military Friendly Schools, Military Spouse and Vetrepreneur magazines and annually rates the nation’s “Military Friendly Employers,” “Military Spouse Friendly Employers” and “Best Corporations for Veteran-Owned Businesses.”